(no subject)
I finished reading The Calling. And now, some thoughts~
Generally, I think I liked this more than The Stolen Throne. It was a little more exciting, and written a little bit better, though Gaider uses "ichor" like SMeyers uses "chagrin". Seriously. And I *kind of* like Maric a little more but at the same time... no. I still think I hate him.
I just don't understand how Katriel was his ~*~TRU WUV~*~ and he's still going on and on and on like she was the best thing that ever happened to him. PLEASE. They fucked twice and he killed her, end of story. Maybe this is a failure of "show not tell"; I'm being told they are so in love but there is absolutely nothing going on between them to back it up. I can't begin to describe how empty their "relationship" felt to me.
Anyway, he's not nearly as irritating this time around, but he also just up and left Denerim/Cailan because he was ~depressed~. And, idk, he's acting extremely juvenile. Okay, so... he's still depressed because Rowan's dead and he killed Katriel but that was FOREVER ago and I just want to scream "CRY MOAR". Maybe if he actually seemed to care about Rowan like Loghain did it would have a little more meaning behind it, but I'm finding I really don't care about Maric or his feelings at all. He says he loved her, but it feels like liiieess.
Okay, I think I'm going to go for some bullet points now x)
• What is it about the Deep Roads that screams "LETS FUCK!!!"? REALLY David Gaider?! Maric and Fiona, Maric and Katriel, Loghain and Rowan. WHO KNOWS maybe Julien and Nicolas got it on down there too. I MEAN REALLY.
• Seriously, these books are doing nothing for my dislike of the Wardens as a whole. Aren't I supposed to feel awesome and special and heroic? Instead I just feel like shit about it all. There is nothing awesome about being a Warden. Okay... maybe that's the point. Hmmm. :\ STILL. It doesn't mean I have to like it. What a shitty thing to build an Order around. It fucking sucks. Or maybe they fact that it sucks is supposed to make them seem more ~noble~? Well, fuck that, I don't feel noble. I feel like I want to punch someone in the face.
And the Wardens at Weisshaupt? Or whoever are the ones in charge, whatever - they are all just huge dicks. I have such a problem with them, and this is not limited to the books. First of all, WAY TO FAIL FOR ALL OF ORIGINS. No word after the Battle at Ostagar? OH just send one guy in. And when he doesn't report back? DO NOTHING, OBVIOUSLY! NOTHING BAD COULD HAVE POSSIBLY EVER HAPPENED EVER. IT'S ONLY BEEN A YEAR. AND. The Wardens you sent to Vigil's Keep? FAILURES! Way to fucking go.
Also, total failure for dropping the ball, regular Wardens (LOOKING AT YOU, DUNCAN AND RIORDAN). Way to not let your new Wardens know how to defeat the Archdemon! Okay, I get it, no one could have predicted what happened at Ostagar. I'm sure they thought they would have time to tell Alistair and the Warden alll about it. But. THIS IS A BLIGHT. I don't know, don't you think that would be kind of important?! The PC is new, so that's excusable, but Alistair has been a Warden for six months! Everyone's already got their panties in a twist because no one believes that it's a true Blight, so wouldn't you want to be, IDK, PREPARED?? :||
/RANT
• WHAT IS GOING ON WITH FIONA'S HAIR? On page 14, it's "mousy brown"; on 163, "spiky black"; and on 356, "short black". WHOOO KNOWSSS. And is she really Orlesian or just from Orlais? No mention was ever made of an accent, and since they mentioned Utha's signing every time she spoke I'd think if she did have an accent it would have been mentioned. Just curious.
• Fiona is actually a LOT like my f!Tabris. I can easily see Kallian being exactly like Fiona if things had turned out differently. And, you know, if she was a mage. It's kind of weird how similar they are. What really stuck out to me, in particular, was:
All the expectations she had laid on him for being this king and this figure of legend, and it turned out he was simply a good man. How unexpected.
She wanted this. She wanted to be with a good man, and forget for just a moment about where they were, and what had happened to them.
Because I pretty much have written the same things for Kallian/Alistair. So it's kind of cool (and a little weird, I guess) how much the relationships parallel each other, and how Kallian and Alistair get what Fiona and Maric could never have. It also makes me think a bit about what a meeting between Fiona and Kallian would be like. It's got to happen sometime, especially if Fiona was tasked with finding the Architect. I think Fiona might like her a bit, but once she finds out what happened at the end of Awakenings... well, judging by her reaction to Genevieve, she'd be less than thrilled, I'm sure.
• I have no doubt that Alistair is Maric and Fiona's child. Why else would it even have been written? What would be the point of having another heir running around, from a story-telling point of view? Sure, it's possible. Hell, Maric could have a dozen bastards for all we know, but for it to come up like it has? Who else would it be? People have said Anders but was Anders (a somewhat minor character from an expansion) really thought of that far ahead? It had to be Alistair. And even if the timelines don't match up, who's to say they haven't just been lying to him about his age his entire life?
OMG. SO... would that mean that the amulet you find in Eamon's study actually belongs to Fiona?? AND NOW I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT IT. asjlkfjsa
• Duncan. I like this Duncan far more than I like Origins!Duncan. I feel like he's kind of turned into Genevieve by Origins, and I don't really like it. I don't remember what you say to him, but in the city elf origin he flat up tells you, "I did not do this for your benefit. I needed a Grey Warden and I found one. That conscripting you saved your life is only circumstance." I got that on my second playthrough, so I was a little ":|" when I heard it, especially how Alistair goes on and on like he's the best person to ever grace Thedas with his presence. Kinda sounds like a dick to me. I get that he's just doing his Warden thing but it's kind of cold for him, I think. And it makes me wonder just how much Duncan actually cares for Alistair, or if it's Alistair imagining most of it because he wants a father figure so badly?
• And er, for the record, Kell was my favorite character :) The scene where he tried to get Hafter to leave him was heartbreaking ;_;
And so, in the end, I liked it because it gave me a lot to think about. Pretty much everything that happened had some relevance to the games/my f!Tabris/my general feelings so it was Good. :)
Now I have "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" to read. And also the two Mass Effect novels. Yeeeahh I've read them both before but I have absolutely no idea what they were even about.
Generally, I think I liked this more than The Stolen Throne. It was a little more exciting, and written a little bit better, though Gaider uses "ichor" like SMeyers uses "chagrin". Seriously. And I *kind of* like Maric a little more but at the same time... no. I still think I hate him.
I just don't understand how Katriel was his ~*~TRU WUV~*~ and he's still going on and on and on like she was the best thing that ever happened to him. PLEASE. They fucked twice and he killed her, end of story. Maybe this is a failure of "show not tell"; I'm being told they are so in love but there is absolutely nothing going on between them to back it up. I can't begin to describe how empty their "relationship" felt to me.
Anyway, he's not nearly as irritating this time around, but he also just up and left Denerim/Cailan because he was ~depressed~. And, idk, he's acting extremely juvenile. Okay, so... he's still depressed because Rowan's dead and he killed Katriel but that was FOREVER ago and I just want to scream "CRY MOAR". Maybe if he actually seemed to care about Rowan like Loghain did it would have a little more meaning behind it, but I'm finding I really don't care about Maric or his feelings at all. He says he loved her, but it feels like liiieess.
Okay, I think I'm going to go for some bullet points now x)
• What is it about the Deep Roads that screams "LETS FUCK!!!"? REALLY David Gaider?! Maric and Fiona, Maric and Katriel, Loghain and Rowan. WHO KNOWS maybe Julien and Nicolas got it on down there too. I MEAN REALLY.
• Seriously, these books are doing nothing for my dislike of the Wardens as a whole. Aren't I supposed to feel awesome and special and heroic? Instead I just feel like shit about it all. There is nothing awesome about being a Warden. Okay... maybe that's the point. Hmmm. :\ STILL. It doesn't mean I have to like it. What a shitty thing to build an Order around. It fucking sucks. Or maybe they fact that it sucks is supposed to make them seem more ~noble~? Well, fuck that, I don't feel noble. I feel like I want to punch someone in the face.
And the Wardens at Weisshaupt? Or whoever are the ones in charge, whatever - they are all just huge dicks. I have such a problem with them, and this is not limited to the books. First of all, WAY TO FAIL FOR ALL OF ORIGINS. No word after the Battle at Ostagar? OH just send one guy in. And when he doesn't report back? DO NOTHING, OBVIOUSLY! NOTHING BAD COULD HAVE POSSIBLY EVER HAPPENED EVER. IT'S ONLY BEEN A YEAR. AND. The Wardens you sent to Vigil's Keep? FAILURES! Way to fucking go.
Also, total failure for dropping the ball, regular Wardens (LOOKING AT YOU, DUNCAN AND RIORDAN). Way to not let your new Wardens know how to defeat the Archdemon! Okay, I get it, no one could have predicted what happened at Ostagar. I'm sure they thought they would have time to tell Alistair and the Warden alll about it. But. THIS IS A BLIGHT. I don't know, don't you think that would be kind of important?! The PC is new, so that's excusable, but Alistair has been a Warden for six months! Everyone's already got their panties in a twist because no one believes that it's a true Blight, so wouldn't you want to be, IDK, PREPARED?? :||
/RANT
• WHAT IS GOING ON WITH FIONA'S HAIR? On page 14, it's "mousy brown"; on 163, "spiky black"; and on 356, "short black". WHOOO KNOWSSS. And is she really Orlesian or just from Orlais? No mention was ever made of an accent, and since they mentioned Utha's signing every time she spoke I'd think if she did have an accent it would have been mentioned. Just curious.
• Fiona is actually a LOT like my f!Tabris. I can easily see Kallian being exactly like Fiona if things had turned out differently. And, you know, if she was a mage. It's kind of weird how similar they are. What really stuck out to me, in particular, was:
All the expectations she had laid on him for being this king and this figure of legend, and it turned out he was simply a good man. How unexpected.
She wanted this. She wanted to be with a good man, and forget for just a moment about where they were, and what had happened to them.
Because I pretty much have written the same things for Kallian/Alistair. So it's kind of cool (and a little weird, I guess) how much the relationships parallel each other, and how Kallian and Alistair get what Fiona and Maric could never have. It also makes me think a bit about what a meeting between Fiona and Kallian would be like. It's got to happen sometime, especially if Fiona was tasked with finding the Architect. I think Fiona might like her a bit, but once she finds out what happened at the end of Awakenings... well, judging by her reaction to Genevieve, she'd be less than thrilled, I'm sure.
• I have no doubt that Alistair is Maric and Fiona's child. Why else would it even have been written? What would be the point of having another heir running around, from a story-telling point of view? Sure, it's possible. Hell, Maric could have a dozen bastards for all we know, but for it to come up like it has? Who else would it be? People have said Anders but was Anders (a somewhat minor character from an expansion) really thought of that far ahead? It had to be Alistair. And even if the timelines don't match up, who's to say they haven't just been lying to him about his age his entire life?
OMG. SO... would that mean that the amulet you find in Eamon's study actually belongs to Fiona?? AND NOW I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT IT. asjlkfjsa
• Duncan. I like this Duncan far more than I like Origins!Duncan. I feel like he's kind of turned into Genevieve by Origins, and I don't really like it. I don't remember what you say to him, but in the city elf origin he flat up tells you, "I did not do this for your benefit. I needed a Grey Warden and I found one. That conscripting you saved your life is only circumstance." I got that on my second playthrough, so I was a little ":|" when I heard it, especially how Alistair goes on and on like he's the best person to ever grace Thedas with his presence. Kinda sounds like a dick to me. I get that he's just doing his Warden thing but it's kind of cold for him, I think. And it makes me wonder just how much Duncan actually cares for Alistair, or if it's Alistair imagining most of it because he wants a father figure so badly?
• And er, for the record, Kell was my favorite character :) The scene where he tried to get Hafter to leave him was heartbreaking ;_;
And so, in the end, I liked it because it gave me a lot to think about. Pretty much everything that happened had some relevance to the games/my f!Tabris/my general feelings so it was Good. :)
Now I have "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" to read. And also the two Mass Effect novels. Yeeeahh I've read them both before but I have absolutely no idea what they were even about.